Meet Mona: Interview with ISHTA Yoga Owner
Where are you from?
I’m half Indian and half American. I grew up in Mumbai and moved to the US when I was 16
What inspired you to start a yoga practice?
I first started practicing yoga at school in India. We had a teacher come in and teach us Yoga Nidra. I felt so still and relaxed during and after yoga nidra that I continued to practice this technique through college and graduate school. In fact I would teach my friends in school how to practice yoga nidra when they were really stressed or hadn’t slept during exams -twenty minutes of yoga nidra is often compared to four hours of sleep.
As an adult I started having serious asthma attacks. In India, yoga is used therapeutically to help control asthma symptoms. As a child I went for special breathing classes before school to learn to breath correctly and build my lung capacity. My initial return to yoga as an adult was to control my asthma. I started taking restorative classes, which really helped release the stress locked in my body from the attacks and medications. I ventured into asana classes as well. I was a gymnast growing up and taking asana classes reconnected me to a stillness that I knew and loved when we put our minds into our bodies.
Why ISHTA?
I love Ishta because the practice is individualized – we recognize that every day what we need to balance ourselves is different. Ayurveda, the ancient Indian science of medicine, is a sister science of yoga, recognizes that each individual has a different body-mind type and therefore what each person needs is different. At ISHTA, we integrate the principles of Ayurveda into the practice. I worked with Alan to develop a method of integrating the principles of Ayurveda into the asana practice. ISHTA gives us the tools to recognize our imbalances and through the practice finding our own inner balance.
What makes teacher training and the practice at ISHTA different than other studios?
We don’t see life in black and white but instead in shades of grey. This translates to different ways to approach the practice for different body mind types. Also, as a tantric school, we believe that we are all perfect as we are and therefore the practice is not about getting from here to there but instead tapping back into our inner perfection that is already within us. This translates into a practice of self-acceptance and letting go of external measurements as a measure of the advancement of the practice. The ISHTA training gives teachers tools to help each individual step back into their essence using a variety of techniques including asana, pranayama, meditation, yoga nidra, visualizations or mantras.
Trainers have very different focuses and each teacher is encouraged to delve deeper into the part of the practice that resonates with them. For me it has been yoga nidra. I’ve worked on integrating yoga nidra and restorative yoga. My focus has been on developing yoga nidra practices for each chakra and most recently on designing yoga nidras for doshic imbalances. Alan and I are currently writing a book on yoga nidra and the chakras.
How would you describe your classes in three words?
Balance, breath, philosophy
Share with us your favorite moment or inspirational exchange with Alan Finger.
What inspires me about Alan is his lack of dogma. When you ask him for advice, he’s not wearing his yoga hat. He’s always present for the question and gives you advice that is real rather than fitting into a box of what would be the right yoga answer. It’s what makes his style of yoga so unique – you cannot put it into a box of do’s and don’ts.
Do you have a favorite sutra?
My favorite concept from the sutras is pratibakshabhavanam. When we’re feeing one way do the opposite to find balance. Often when we’re feeling depressed or anxious we get stuck analyzing what has caused the depression or anxiety. By resting on our worries and what’s wrong, we strengthen these synapses in our brain and it takes less and less to run these circuits. Pratibakshabhavanam encourage us to do the opposite of what we’re feeling to find balance. The more we run circuits of joy, the more we strengthen these circuits and the easier it is to feel happy. The ancient yogis had figure out what neuroscientists can now see through brain scans.